Totoro Bento Box

My daughter E. received an exciting package in the mail this weekend: a My Neighbor Totoro bento box all the way from Japan. She was so excited that she insisted that I show it to you here.My Neighbor Totoro is her favorite movie, and I have to admit that I love it, too. So, when I started seeing Totoro bento boxes on internet sites like Bento TV, I was determined to find one. That turned out to be harder than I expected and I wound up ordering it from Japan.

Well, you would have thought that E. had won the lottery–a Totoro lunchbox all the way from Japan! She immediately called all her friends to tell them about it (only one of whom knew what Totoro was). She wanted me to fill it with sushi that very minute, but I told her she’d have to wait until Monday. So last night I prepared sushi for dinner (more about that in another post) and made sure I had plenty of leftover sushi rice to make her a bento lunch.

The bento box came with a very handy rice cover that you can use to press the rice into rounded shapes that are easier to pick up with chopsticks. I used medium-grain brown rice, which I cooked with extra water to make it stickier and then mixed with seasoned rice vinegar to taste. I sprinkled on a few black sesame seeds after pressing it with the rice cover.

I also included some edamame that were tossed with just a few drops of dark sesame oil, which adds flavor but also helps keep the beans from drying out. In the smaller tier of the box, I put a few baby carrots that were cooked in seasoned vegetable broth and some slices of organic golden delicious apples that I tossed with orange juice to keep them from turning brown.

E. didn’t see what I put into the lunchbox this morning, so I’m eager to hear how she liked it. I do know that just the lunchbox made her so happy that she kept saying, “You’re the best mom ever!”

Hi. I have the same bento box (but with a different Hayao Miyazaki movie design – Kiki’s Delivery Service). This one is not microwaveable. It’s actually written in the tiny literature that came with it and at the bottom of the second layer – but in Japanese 🙂

I’ve been scouring your site for recipes all week while I’ve been at work and now that I have come across this post I decided that I just had to comment. You are awesome! And your daughter has great taste, as do you (Totoro is the coolest!!). Thank you for sharing with me 🙂 I have pinned probably a million things from here. Seriously, you rock.